


Dream Oath

by Wallwalker



Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/M, Missing Scene, Power Imbalance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wallwalker/pseuds/Wallwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rest of his life was nothing, compared to this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dream Oath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NightsMistress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NightsMistress/gifts).



They said Seifer doesn’t respect anything or anyone, but that’s not true. He lives by his own code - not the Garden code, although he’d taken what few things of any value that he’d found there and incorporated it into his own, but something that he’d been thinking over for... however long he’d been thinking it over. Probably his entire life, while he was growing up in the Garden. (He must’ve grown up there, because he couldn’t remember growing up anywhere else.)

First: Don’t hurt anyone weaker than you. Good thing he’s never had to; that’s one advantage to growing up in a military training facility. The weak didn’t last long. Good thing; if he’d had to learn to fight while simultaneously coddling somebody else, he never would’ve learned anything, no matter what his instructors said.

Second: Respect authority, but only when authority is worthy of respect. And if he was going to find anyone who deserved it, well, it wasn’t going to be _there,_ not in a place that would oppress the weak and helpless for the right price. 

Third: Stand up for people who can’t stand up for themselves. Something else he rarely had a chance to do, in a place where everyone learned how to handle themselves as soon as they could carry a weapon, but he’d find someone, someday. He wasn’t going to be there forever. (He’d thought he had found someone when he’d met Rinoa, during that long summer in Timber. But Seifer had wanted to stand in front of her and take the brunt of Galbadia’s rage, and Rinoa had wanted to push him aside and fight next to him, and it just hadn’t worked. Maybe if... but no, it’d never be the way he had wanted it to be.)

People said he was unpredictable, a loose cannon. No doubt the Garden officials were shaking their heads at him right now, asking how they could’ve missed him, why they’d allowed such an undisciplined student to advance so far and so fast. But if they’d taken even a moment to understand _his_ rules, they’d get it. They’d know exactly why he’d busted out of his cell, why he’d spent hours in an empty private train with his sword stuck at the captain’s throat.

Stand up for Timber. Stand up for the downtrodden, who don’t have the means and the power to fight back, even when they reach out and beg for help and get nothing but three stupid rookies with no field experience. Fight for them, even if it might mean everything gets destroyed in the process. 

He almost had it. He’d almost taken out Deling, just like Rinoa had wanted, and he hadn’t even needed a GF to overpower the entire damn security force. The other idiots who’d busted in after him could figure out what would happen next; his job was done.

He’d almost gotten away clean, before she appeared. 

Seeing her for the first time... he could barely remember. She wore a face that wasn’t _hers,_ he could see the echo behind it, the need and the pain behind her proud eyes, the way that she reached for him. She had spoken, but he had barely heard it.

_Come with me. Leave your childhood behind._

Her voice was calling him to a land he’d never seen, but a land that felt more like home than anywhere had ever felt before. 

Seifer may not remember everything that had happened, but he knew one thing. Once he’d heard her voice - once he’d looked into those eyes and realized that they were where he belonged - he hadn’t hesitated to make his decision, to follow her into the darkness of her portal. 

\---

The first thing he remembered after stepping through that portal was the sea wind, blowing strong and fierce against his coat. They were standing on a rocky cliff, and below him the waves crashed on the shore. He turned around, saw a small cottage in the distance. He gripped his gunblade tightly, every nerve screaming out danger, but there was nothing there. “Where are we?” he asked.

“A place you once called home,” the woman said. He looked over at her, noticing that she was different now, though she spoke with the same voice. Her face was longer and thinner, and her headdress two horns that jutted from her head; her black dress was gone, replaced with red velvet. Two dark, feathery wings fluttered around her shoulders. But the most captivating difference was her eyes, yellow and bright enough for him to lose himself in. 

“That’s impossible. I’ve never lived anywhere but Garden.”

“So you believe,” she said. “They allowed your Guardians to eat away your memories, so that you would forget about me. About your true purpose.”

He looked at her, up into her golden eyes. He’d never seen her face before. He would’ve remembered anyone so regal, so proud. “What are you talking about?”

“Look.” She took his arm and turned them both around, pointing with one long finger at the house.

Space seemed to flicker around them, and ghostly images formed - images of a small room full of beds. He could hear tiny snores and whispers, the sounds of sleeping children. Seifer watched, not sure what else to do; it couldn’t be real, and yet something in it resonated with him. 

Then he saw her glide into the room; she was wearing the same shell as before, but he knew her immediately. He knew the golden glow in her eyes. She examined the children, reaching out to each of them before withdrawing. 

That changed when she reached the last bed. He watched the ghostly form consider the last child, and then reach out and gently stroke their yellow hair. She held up her other hand, and fire flashed between her fingers. 

“You... what did you do?” he whispered, his eyes fixed on the scene in front of him. The fire grew in her palm, and the child started to toss and turn, making small, high-pitched noises in his throat.

“Hush, boy,” she answered. “Watch.” 

Seifer obeyed, forcing down his anger, because he wasn’t a boy but what could he do? He watched as the fire floated from her hand to hover above the boy’s chest. It drifted down, separating into sparks that engulfed the boy, but they didn’t burn. For a moment, they seemed to light him up from within. 

The woman and the fire disappeared. There was nothing, for a moment... then Seifer saw the boy sit up, blue eyes open and bright. He was smiling, his lips tightly pressed together, and even though the room was dark Seifer could see every feature perfectly. His large nose, his shock of yellow hair -

“That’s... me!” he said as realization finally struck him. Who else could it be? “But it can’t be. I’ve never seen this place before!” 

“You have,” the Sorceress repeated, and the images faded. There was nothing left there but him and the lady he had followed through that strange portal, and she was smiling at him. “I chose you, Seifer, to be my Knight. Even when you were a child, I knew that you had potential. But my enemies found you, and they attempted to steal your memories, and steal you from me.”

“Bastards,” he managed, because he couldn’t think of anything else to say - she was regal in a way that he’d never seen before, and he was lost in those golden eyes. “They had no right.”

“No,” she agreed. “But you have returned to me. And now we can make them pay... if you will swear to serve me, and protect me from the whims of the ignorant.” 

Yes... he’d read about what they did to Sorceresses, the long and impossible exiles. And for all of the condemnation in the stories - for all that they dwelled on the horror of the Sorceresses’ actions, their coldness and anger - he couldn’t hate them. The entire world hated them, and so he _couldn’t_ follow their lead. They didn’t deserve to be respected. “What do you intend to do?” he asked. 

“To remake this world,” she said, her smile widening. “To unite those of us who live as one, and create a place where we can live without interference. Come with me, Seifer, and help me build that world. Your childhood is over. This is your destiny.”

Slowly, reverently, he dropped to one knee. “Destiny, huh,” he said, and he couldn’t help but smile. It was more than that, for him. It was his greatest dream come true. “I like that.” He looked back up at her, extended his hand. “Yeah. I’ll protect you, no matter what.” 

She took it in her own, her long, long fingers wrapping around his. “Say your life is mine,” she said. “Say it by your name, and by mine.”

For a second he froze. What was her name? What was he doing, talking like this to someone whose name he didn’t even know? Maybe all of this had been a mistake -

_Calm yourself, child,_ her voice echoed in his mind, and he... he could _feel_ her now, could feel her thoughts inside of him. _Clear your mind, and speak._

He took a deep breath, trying to do as she said... and then he heard himself speak. “I, Seifer Almasy, swear eternal Knighthood to you. Your life is mine to do with as you please...” And then he knew it, knew her name as if it had been written in fire in his mind. “Sorceress Ultimecia.”

She laughed, pulling him to his feet. Her smile was red and bright, and her eyes... they were even deeper than before. He thought he could feel himself falling into them, and he didn’t care. He would be a part of her before he let them be separated again. “Good,” she said, leaning in, kissing him softly on the forehead. “Let us see a new world be born.”

He laughed - no one would ever be as happy as he was, he thought, in that moment. The rest of his life was nothing, compared to this. “I can’t wait to get started.”


End file.
